


Moments of Gold and Flashes of Light

by Ailorian, quixoticquest



Series: A Lot Can Happen in 27 Years [4]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Christmas stuff, Cuddling, Drunk Misunderstanding, Hanukkah stuff, M/M, Miscommunication, Paranoia, Post-Graduation, Stan is in the closet and he doesn't even know it, Underage Drinking, bi bill, established reddie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-24 06:25:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15624615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ailorian/pseuds/Ailorian, https://archiveofourown.org/users/quixoticquest/pseuds/quixoticquest
Summary: A drunken night and a miscommunication brings Bill and Stanley closer than ever before. Bill thinks he might be in love with Stan, and wants more than anything to have a relationship with him. Stan doesn't know what he thinks, just that Bill feels good, and always kisses back. They both have some growth to accomplish, in more ways than one, and it's going to hurt a lot before they get anywhere close. How do Eddie and Richie make it look so easy?*The Stenbrough spin-off no one asked for*





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for clicking! With all the fics in this series, this functions as a standalone (this fic especially, given the nature of it), but if you are interested in the whole overarching story, you can start at the beginning if you're interested! If not, no problemo! I won't know either way lol.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy what you're about to read! I know I enjoyed writing it.

Bill Denbrough snapped awake with the shift of the warm shoulder under his cheek, gasping as his heartbeat spiked. Against him, Mike stirred at the sound of Richie’s voice, coaxing them up and alert. The dying bonfire pulsed before them, sending wisps of smoke into the inky black sky.

That’s right. They had graduated today. Er, yesterday, maybe. Depending on the hour. Before the lights went dark in all the houses along the street, when they were still cognizant enough to carry a conversation. Bill couldn’t imagine a better start to the first day of their last summer, than waking up surrounded by his friends.

“You guys can ss-stay here tonight,” he offered the sleepy, tipsy lot of them, slipping out from between Stan and Mike to ready the way. Bev, Ben, and Stanley headed inside eagerly (as eagerly as they could at this hour), while Richie set off toward home, and Mike braved the ten minute drive to the farm. When the squeak of sneakers through dewey grass finally ceased, Bill was alone, in the quiet of his backyard.

He allowed himself a cleansing breath, in the hopes that the cool air might sober him a little, and made to kill the fire. Bill smothered every bit of smoldering kindling into black soot, and with the last crackling embers fading, he lumbered into his house with the others. He would have to clean up the trash in the morning, but he couldn't think about that right now, when he was jonesing for bed and pajamas.  
  
Letting himself in the back door, Bill shuffled across the carpet to the stairs, frustrated by how many times he had to steady himself against various pieces of furniture. The basement still smelled like fresh paint from when they retrofitted it in March to have things like a couch and TV and ping pong table. In his state, it was almost enough to make him nauseous.

"I can't," Stan whined all of a sudden, drawing Bill’s wavering attention. There was just the one sofa in the basement, apparently occupied, as Beverly dropped down into the crevice created by the bend of Ben's knees, slumping over until she could rest her head on one big arm. With her calf balanced against the floor, and the rest of her body shoved onto the cushions, there was no way Stanley would fit (or, knowing him, even wanted to).  
  
Staring for as long as it took to process the situation, Bill nodded at Stan, and made a pointed decision to smother down long-forgotten jealousy that threatened to rear its ugly head in the wake of the alcohol swimming in his veins. So what if Bev slept with ( _next to_ ) Ben? She was a blanket hog anyway.

"Come on," he managed, waving toward the stairs. "W-we can s-suh-sleep in my room. Just be q-quiet." Pausing just a second to make sure the only vertical friend remaining was bound after him, Bill hurried up the newly carpeted steps, fighting to stay light on his feet.

The place was quiet, probably because his mild-mannered parents never really stayed up past eleven o'clock, even with a bunch of rowdy teenagers in their backyard. Could probably sleep easy knowing their son wasn't cool enough to be at any of the crazy house parties happening around town to celebrate the end of high school forever.   
  
Bill found himself feeling his way along most surfaces he passed on the way up to his room, more so than usual on a night like this. Usually, he tried to pace himself with his booze, as the designated driver as much in reality as spirit. But either the excuse of it being his home, or the weight of the future at large, or both, had him drinking enough to be leaning to and fro a little dangerously.

When he got to his room, he was almost surprised he made it there. The light still on from when he got changed hours earlier, a beacon in the dark, lonely house.

Seconds into gathering up the grad stuff he'd left on his bed so he could sit down to take his shoes off, Stan appeared in the doorway, and didn't make it a couple paces before tripping to his knees. Bill stood a beat later, his reaction delayed.

"Shh," Stan hissed at himself, shoving up and stumbling the last few feet before he hit the mattress - rendering Bill’s attempt to help basically useless (though to be fair, he hadn’t made much of an attempt at all).

"Are you fff-falling for me, Stanley?" he asked rather brazenly, edging his way to his closet for something more comfortable to wear to bed.

"No, I tripped on the rug," Stan answered as he kicked out of his shoes, incredulous and matter-of-fact. “I need pajamas.” He was struggling to enunciate - something Bill had been struggling to do his whole life.

Pulling open the slatted doors revealed his dresser, tucked under all the hanging shirts and jackets and trousers that his mom wouldn't let him just fold up like everything else. Hunkering down to slide open a drawer, Bill set to task. They were about the same height, so it shouldn't be too hard to find something fit for Stanley.  
  
The sound of shifting limbs and fabric heralded Stan’s attempts to make himself at home in bed, huffing and puffing all the while. With all that noise, Bill hardly expected Stan to appear beside him a moment later, his body banging against the wooden door hard enough to scare the poor guy half to death. Stan giggled helplessly, a stark contrast to his startled friend, and Bill put his finger to his lips desperately before returning to his task.

He hadn't failed to notice that Stan was standing in his underwear now, but that was the least of Bill’s problems. They needed pajamas, after all.  
  
"Yogi B-bear or Coca C-cola?" Bill murmured, holding two old T-shirts up for Stan's thorough inspection. 

"What's the difference?" Stan asked, completely serious.

"One's a s-soda a-and one's a bear," Bill explained honestly, bent down with either garment aloft in his hands, like he was presenting an offering at the foot of a monarch. Stan snatched the red shirt out of his grasp, putting Bill’s abysmal motor skills to shame.

"This is clean, right?" Stan asked softly, pressing it to his face for a deep inhale. “It smells like you.”

Bill could only watch, amazed, as Stan finally twirled away with the Coca Cola shirt, like he would rather fling it like a handkerchief than put it on. Helpless, Bill stared into the dark between hanging shirtsleeves for a second, as if he had to regain his balance all over again before opening another drawer.  
  
After another thorough search, he stood up, this time with two pajama bottoms over his arm, as well as the extra shirt for himself. Closing the door (banging his knee against the drawer he'd left open), Bill found Stan rolling around across the bed, in nothing more than his underwear, still.   
  
"Here," Bill offered, tossing out a random pair, since he got such a less-than-stellar reaction when shirt choice had been up to Stan. Hopefully he liked what Bill picked out for him.

"Come on, Stanley. Get up, I want to sleep." Bill had to undress himself, first, though. And what a chore that sounded like. Worse than cleaning out the gutter on the roof.

"You _lay down_ to sleep," Stan argued, dragging the fleece bottoms away from his face and holding it up for the scrutiny of his skeptical gaze. After he decided he was satisfied, the dirty blond did his damnedest to get into the pajama bottoms without actually standing up.

The first couple buttons on Bill’s shirt came undone easily under his bumbling fingers, but even then, he quickly grew tired of the rest of them. He wasn't even halfway down before he was trying to pull the thing over his head like some run-of-the-mill T-shirt. Bill probably should have undone the wrist buttons, he realized, squirming enough in the confines of his shirt-vise to upset his balance.

All of a sudden he was tipping, falling, and yelling all the while as the world tilted behind the cotton over his eyes. He smashed cheek-first into the quilt on his bed, bouncing with the mild impact.

"Strip much?" Stanley asked, laughing. Like an antsy turtle, Bill poked his head out from his neck hole, only to find Stanley doubled over giggling, because stumbling around was just so damn funny, apparently.

Bill stared, silent in contrast, and unwilling to break. It wasn't his fault Stan never let himself get exceedingly happy these days. You had to appreciate every moment you could get.  
  
"D-d-dress much?" Bill retorted finally, the clever (he thought so anyway) comeback marred by his speech impediment. He might as well have been fully dressed as he rose up on his knees, still in his button-down and slacks, to grab the giggling idiot by the wrists, plucking his T-shirt out of his hands.   
  
"P-puh-put your p-pants on," Bill stammered out, even though that was the last thing Stan could accomplish with Bill trying to aim the shirt hole at his head like he was playing net to an uncooperative basketball. 

"Take your pants off," Stan argued. Apparently they were doing an opposites thing. Before Bill could shove the shirt over his frizzy curls, the dirty-blond recoiled and launched himself backwards. The bed bounced beneath them and his head landed halfway across the pillows.   
  
Stan, while sometimes surly or unimpressed, was usually pretty compliant with most things, so you can imagine Bill's surprise as his honest to goodness efforts to _help_ Stan were met with squabbling. They had just graduated the twelfth grade, not the second, after all.   
  
"Hold still," Stan whined, his hand rising to press Bill’s away. As if growing tired of that all of a sudden, his fingers skimmed the shirtsleeves, pinkies and thumbs catching against Bill’s wrists under the cuffs.

"Come on," Bill huffed, annoyed that this was so much harder than it had to be. The fact that they even had to dress and/or undress each other at all probably went to show, they both had way too much to drink that night. Now if only Stan would unlock his stubborn elbows; Bill wasn't nearly strong enough to wriggle out of the grip.  
  
Eventually, he sighed, admitting defeat in the form of a heaved breath. All the sparse energy Bill had left squeezed out of him, and now he didn’t care where or how he fell asleep, as long it just _happened_.

Leaning against Stan's arms, Bill managed to collapse his grip, lying half-splayed across the dirty blond’s bare chest, the pulled and abused shirt Stan was supposed to wear fisted in one hand.   
  
"Now I'm too t-tired." 

"Too tired to what?" Stan asked.

"Mmf," was Bill's intelligent response, though he hoped it sounded more like "To put your shirt on" in Stan's ears than it did in his.  
  
"You're crushing me," Stan complained simply. Bill stayed where he was, too sleepy and too satisfied with the immobilization of his body to get up and put himself to bed properly.

Stan moved soon enough though, the sharp planes of his body bumping uncomfortably against Bill while he managed to do little more than _oof_ in response. His hip hit the mattress seconds later, tummy brushing against Stan's tummy where Bill’s shirt rode up over his navel. Somewhere, the other T-shirt had fallen out of his hand. 

"You got t-taller," Bill murmured in wonder, failing to notice Stan was just lying a couple inches higher than him. This was better, though. He couldn't get the blankets up over himself, but at least the bed couldn't writhe and wriggle beneath him. Practically using Stan's body as a ladder, Bill shuffled himself up onto a pillow by holding and pushing and shimmying, until he was eye level with his three-quarters naked friend, head cushioned under one ear.  
  
Satisfied with that much, Bill rewarded himself by tipping his face forward, eyes closed so he could get to sleep faster as he brushed along the seam of Stan's mouth with his own. It hardly qualified as a kiss; he was too tired to purse his lips. 

Stan was warm, a furnace on low power that Bill was glad to take advantage of while his sheets were being weighed down by their two butts. His mouth was warm too, surprisingly, maybe, since it had been quite cool earlier, and they had been tipping cold drinks to their mouths all night. Stan was especially warm when he moved his face, and their lips smushed together more solidly.  
  
Bill opened his eyes to stare at the fuzzy space between their noses, some mild form of shock pulsing into his thoughts. Just close enough that he was almost digging his own lip into his teeth under Stan's lips, he tipped back, freeing both of them like it had been a Chinese finger trap, and not a cooperative kiss.   
  
For a little while he didn't say anything, simply because his alcohol infested brain was working through its obstacle course. Bill knew he was a smart kid, smarter than most, but all he could will himself to do right now was stare dumbly at Stan’s face, and all the things that had changed about it over the years.   
  
"G-go to sleep, Ss-stanley," he finally whispered, since he wasn't going to get any rest if Stan didn't, especially not touching his mouth with his mouth like that. As if to move the effort along, Bill burrowed up into his toasty warm companion, arm coming in snugly around a firm waist, the other bent against the pillow between them. 

It was actually pretty damn comfortable.  
  
***  
  
A couple times before true morning, Bill woke up - inevitable in the room where he'd left the light on - only to sink back to sleep when its siren song was so much more alluring.

What finally pulled (ripped, really) Bill into the waking midmorning sun was a sequence of elbows, knees, and other joints flailing against his body, as if he had been smuggled into a Bruce Lee movie, until he had no choice but to push himself away from the onslaught. Before he could ask a single question, though, the brief movement had his stomach churning painfully. Suddenly his attempt to right himself turned into an effort to curl into the smallest ball possible.

The ton-of-bricks wave of agony died just enough for Bill to lift his head, peeking between his fingers in the face of the cheerful sunny day dead set on piercing his occipital lobe with thousands of tiny invisible needles. Through the fan of his fingers, Bill watched the curve of Stan's pale back, the bumps in his spine, tensed against his own excruciating hangover.

Bill meant to say something, probably ask if Stan was okay or needed the bathroom, when he realized he himself was not okay, and couldn't ask Stan for the bathroom when he desperately needed it himself, there was no getting a single word out. It was an trial to climb to his feet, but when he did, Bill couldn't book it fast enough, stumbling around the room, and then into the upstairs hallway, with his hands over his eyes.

Bill couldn't remember the last time Losers Club antics had him bent over the toilet. Heck, it might have been never; it had only been a couple years ago that they introduced alcohol to their teenage hangouts. But here Bill was, flushing away the remnants of the previous night, sitting with his head against the porcelain when his intestines couldn't decide if he was done or not. _Pace yourself_ he'd told Richie the night before. Ha.

“Are you alright?”  
  
Stan's voice came to him louder than Bill needed it to be, probably thanks to the reverberation in the tiny bathroom. He looked up, found the rinse cup from the sink hovering over his head, poised in Stan’s hand like a benevolent god come to free him from his misery. Or at least subdue it. Bill took the cup gingerly, and managed a sip before wincing and tipping his head.   
  
"I've b-been b-b-better," he answered tightly, huffing, as if speaking wasn't hard enough.

"You've looked better," Stan remarked sympathetically, leaning heavily against the doorway.

Bill must have sat there for a couple more minutes before finding the will to stand, stumbling as he clutched the cup against his test. Thankfully he'd kept the lights off, so he could look at Stan without wincing away.

"You n-need to use th-the..." It was useless, so Bill just pointed to the toilet aimlessly.

Stan shook his head stubbornly - only to fall forward and catch himself against the lifted seat a second later. Sidestepping just in time, Bill shut, locked, and leaned against the door, just in case it was early enough that one or both of his parents hadn't left for work yet.

Knowing Stan and his hangups (as well as basic human decency), Bill tipped his head toward the ceiling, sparing his friend the shame of staring, even if listening was inevitable. The only light in the room filtered through the window over the toilet, covered by blinds that couldn’t save Bill from the stabbing sensation in his temples.  
  
"I didn't think I drank that much," Stanley murmured bitterly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.   
  
"M-m-me neither," Bill said, moving around so Stan had room at the counter to rinse his mouth. "M-maybe Richie gave us s-something stronger.” He finally dropped his gaze back to Stan, staring at the plain of hunched shoulders, covered by a red T-shirt. His T-shirt.

Bill felt his brow furrow. He distinctly remembered looking at those shoulders, bare, when he got punched awake. Come to think of it, Stan had been lying there, half-naked with his (Bill's) pajama bottoms around his legs, too. Now, they were worn as usual, as if he woke up that way.  
  
A slow-growing anxiety rose in Bill's chest as he tried to recall the night before, however grating it was on his abused head. Not much, beyond shuffling some of them inside and offering his bed to Stan, came to mind. Nothing important enough to stand out, anyway. Yet here they were. In various states of undress.

Hey, did w-we..." Bill trailed off, contemplating word choice. Ultimately, he chose none, realizing just in time that he sounded stupid, and shook his head. "Nevermind."

Mouth pinched, Bill stared down at his bare feet on the tile floor, trying his very best to salvage anything from last night past his bedroom door -  to little avail. Just warmth, and fuzzy lights came to mind.

Stanley hauled himself up from the ground, bracing against the sink. “ _Did we_ what? Don’t clam up, Bill.”

Bill’s eyes swung up to his friend’s back, not quite low enough to catch his gaze in the mirror. His heart skipped a little, and picked up speed. As if Stan were staring him down with all the determination of an inquisitor, and not faced away, Bill turned his eyes to the floor again.

Honesty was the best policy, right?  
  
"J-just," he began, trying to find the most sugar-coated, baby-proofed words he could, "anything, like, d-did we..." God, he could feel his voice getting smaller.

"S-sleep together?"

"You know that we did," Stan answered immediately - shattering every one of Bill’s attempts at a cushion. “I didn’t exactly come over for breakfast, after all.”

Apprehension gripped Bill like a vice - but then, it fell away, and he wasn't sure. Stanley's reaction was far calmer than he expected. But that was sort of what you got with Stan. Either no reaction, or a too-big reaction, when it was too late.

If that was the case, then maybe it wasn’t too late.  
  
"Oh," Bill uttered, blinking toward the ground - again! But he couldn't really stop, even when he lifted his hand to rub his neck (to be fair, his desire for dim might have had something to do with it). He was still in most of his clothes from graduation. But his pants were rumpled, and his shirt undone several buttons. He still had his underwear on underneath it all too. What could they have done anyway?

"S-ssorry."

"Why?" Stan asked, surprising Bill _again_ . He reached for the hand towel, rubbing his face like it had personally offended him. 

Bill couldn't believe he didn't remember a damn thing. This seemed like something you were supposed to remember, for good luck, at least. He stared into middle space, eyes narrowed, as if that might conjure images of what Stan might look like. Flushed. Panting.

Bad idea. Bill looked down again.  
  
"I dunno?" he answered helplessly, shrugging his shoulders. "U-unless, I guess...did you...l-like it?"

Stanley, finished with the towel, had taken to adjusting his shirt, as if there was any reason to make himself presentable at this time. Each second that passed in silence was enough to make Bill’s heart beat double in time, it felt like.

"It was certainly better than trying to squeeze between Ben and Beverly on the sofa," Stan answered finally, scoffing as his mouth barely curled into something sort of resembling a smile.

"Oh," came Bill's reply, useless, again. At least he could count on his throat not closing up on him when he said it. There was his thumb on the back of his neck again, rubbing circles like he might find a pressure point that could tap into lost memories.  
  
Stan's answer was all Bill needed though, really. Even if it made his head spin a little. After all, Eddie was their one and only resident queer kid - so they thought. So far Bill couldn't imagine himself as anything _but_ straight.

And yet, when his mind wandered, when he was trying to draw or write or just be alone, when he least expected, he seemed to be able to imagine a sort of happily ever after with each and every one of his friends. Didn’t matter who,  
  
Maybe that was just because he had a pretty good imagination though. That's what they said, anyway. And he didn’t even think it was good enough to conjure up the apparent reality of drunk sex with one of his best friends. With _Stanley_.

Still. There was only one way to find out.  
  
Bill lifted his hand to Stan's arm, just enough to get him to turn in place of his own accord. He didn't want to be forceful. Once they were facing each other, he shifted forward, and pressed his lips to touch against Stanley's, just a little hesitant, given the roiling nerves having a field day with his body. Every time he thought kisses would get easier the more he did them, they didn’t. 

Stan gasped, lips parting against Bill’s. Just when he thought Stan was moving against him, putting a little thrill through Bill's belly he didn't quite know what to call, he moved in the wrong direction: backward. Leaving Bill to advance against nothing but air, until he opened his eyes.

Stan had tipped himself as far back as he was able, against the sink. It didn't even take an explanation for Bill to know he'd fucked up.

But he got one anyway. "That's not necessary," Stan murmured stoically. "It's just not for me. Last night was fine. I'm not upset. But there's no reason to do it again."

"Right, ss-sorry," Bill said (again) stepping away and turning before the heat in his face could be seen in the dim bathroom. "I didn't m-mean it like...w-we don't have t-to...I mean, it was j-just a kiss. Right?"

This was the worst.  
  
"I'm gonna go ff-find B-ben and B-Bev," Bill forced out, unlocking the door so he could slip away, into the brighter hallway that reminded his eyes that he was hungover like a hammer to the side of the head. It was almost a meager agony under the crushing weight of _I fucked up_.

One summer left with all his friends and he might have just ruined his relationship with one forever.

Before Bill could make it to the stairs, let alone past the bathroom door, he was yanked back into the dark sanctuary hard enough that his heart stopped for a couple beats. When Stan's face loomed close he bleated out a nervous breath - as if Bill had expected to see someone else. Could he have been more of a mess that morning?

"They don't need to know anything," Stan murmured, a plea in his own voice despite the statement of fact. "Right?"

Bill’s brow softened, to the point he hadn’t even realized it was furrowed in the first place. "Of course," he said immediately, before he had cause to worry, or wonder why Stan would even think he’d breathe a word. But he had his quirks. Bill did his best to make him comfortable, though. Always, even if he fell short sometimes. More often than he liked to admit.  
  
"I w-wouldn't, anyway, I p-promise," he said, nodding. Anything to soothe Stanley. "N-no reason to, right?" Bill pantomimed zipping his lips, locking them. Whether that would help or hinder, he didn't know anymore. 

"Right," Stan sighed in answer. "Thank you.”

Only could Bill free his own head from the huddle of his hunched shoulders when Stan visibly relaxed, comforted by the promise alone, it seemed. In which case, Bill had done his job. Maybe that meant all this would be okay, then. Now if only he could stop trying to work his brain around last night.  
  
"Think your mom will let us make pancakes?" Stan asked, voice brighter all of a sudden.

"I th-think so," Bill answered, though he had to wonder if he could really stomach pancakes. Or anything, at all, besides water. Maybe a few aspirin.   
  
"If you want, you can g-go get Ben and B-Bev," Bill suggested a moment later, out of courtesy. "I can ss-start the p-pancakes." After all, he knew his way around his own kitchen better than Stan did, as many times as he had been there.   
  
Offering two thumbs up, Bill left again, this time with Stan in tow. Lifting his hand in front of his eyes, Bill felt the shift of his day-old shirt against his arms, and decided he didn't want to be in it for pancake-making.

"Just let me change," he mentioned, making sure Stan was aware as he jogged back to his bedroom. When he arrived, Bill made quick work of the pajamas already strewn around the bed waiting for him, after shucking off his wrinkled garments for the hamper.

It looked like he'd made an attempt at civility, but whatever Richie put in his cup had thrown civility out the window just so Bill could compromise one of the most important relationships in his life. He groaned to himself, flicking off the night switch so he could dress in his own illusion of peace.  
  
Decked in the green Yogi Bear shirt and mismatched pajama pants, Bill hurried on down to the kitchen, indulging a proper glass of water and two Tylenol before getting a pan on the stove. If Stan, Ben, and Beverly wanted from-scratch, they were plum out of luck, because there was an unopened box of Bisquick in the pantry with all of their names on it.   
  
Bill couldn't remember the last time he'd made pancakes, alone anyway, constantly glancing at the directions and fighting every impulse not taste the batter. It wasn't long before the _delirium tremens_ trio came trudging up from the basement, and he had already prepared for the arrival with three tall glasses of water waiting on the kitchen table.   
  
"Hope you like p-plain," Bill said, flipping a pancake without ceremony. "No b-blueberries or ch-chocolate chips." 

"Prolly have to eat and run," Beverly answered, claiming her glass and chair at the kitchen table in one fell swoop. "My aunt's comin' to pick me up, soon I think. What time is it?"

“Looks around nine.”

"Oh, shit, maybe I have some time, then." Casting a glare over her shoulder, Beverly held her hand up expectantly toward all of them. "Do you not know how to sleep in?"   
  
"I know how," Ben whined, looking much less worse for wear than either Stan or Bill had woken up - which seemed unfair, considering he had fallen asleep on a sofa, under another person. 

Pinching his mouth, Bill thought about how he would have liked to sleep in, were it not for the assault on his ribs when Stan pried away from him that morning. And then, you know, all the grief that followed. Bill had to wonder how the popular kids did this, every other weekend and then some.  
  
"M-maybe you can take a nap later," he offered, shrugging at Bev as he got out the spatula to take over when his flips were coming out pretty terrible. Just for the sake of saying it, trying to be helpful. "It's just the ff-first day of summer after all. We don't even have anything p-puh-planned."   
  
Bill doled out pancakes as they came to fruition, stacking two at a time on paper plates to avoid more washing. He made sure there was butter and syrup for his impromptu sleepover guests, and finally, came to sit with them, toting a plate of his own.   
  
"What was all that noise last night?" Ben asked curiously, and Bill almost dropped the butter knife in his lap. "We could hear it all the way from the basement." 

To avoid speaking, as if he had been asked the question directly, Bill stuffed a forkful of pancake in his mouth to keep his stuttering voice from chiming in. All the while, he couldn't help but think that _fuck had they really made that much noise_? And he didn't even remember? Hopefully no one noticed the flush that had apparently come over him. He pretended to read the nutrition facts off the bottle of syrup, as if he really gave a damn.

"I had some trouble changing clothes," Stanley uttered soon enough, shrugging. "Too much to drink, I guess, and in an unfamiliar house. I was knocking into everything. Bruised my arm." He lifted his hand as if they needed proof. 

Bill finally found it in him to look at Stan. In the full light of the kitchen, his curly hair was sleep-frizzy, and he looked more worn out that usual. No foolin'.  
  
"Oh," Ben said, like that was all it took to make sense to him. "I can't believe you made it up two sets of stairs."   
  
"Yeah, m-me neither," Bill chirped, just to go with the flow of the conversation. "I think I'll ss-stick to d-designated driver next t-time." 

"We should check on Mike," Stan mentioned.   
  
"Not Eddie and Richie?" Beverly asked, an amused grin on her face as her teeth closed around her fork.   
  
"I'm sure Mrs. K would love to check in on them, if you want to call," he answered primly, before the wry curl of his smile pulled his cheeks too much.

Breakfast finished in record time, since everyone seemed pretty keen on getting home to their proper beds for a little extra sleep. Wasn't like their old sleepovers anymore, that was for sure. Bill tried to keep it in his head to make sure everyone had got home safe (or wherever they meant to be going), but that was just another thing on top of all the stuff he had to do that morning. Not that it would take long, but if the backyard wasn't clean before his parents got home, his last summer would be off to a very bad start.  
  
By the time everyone else had finished eating, Stan had settled in front of the sink, and offered little more than dry looks in exchange for dishes and utensils as they were offered. It was probably fair repayment for making breakfast, but Bill grabbed a towel anyway, and started drying pan and spatula alike.   
  
"Do you want help with the backyard?" Stan asked when everything was put away, Ben's car disappearing around the corner out the window, only a few minutes after Beverly's aunt had pulled up to the driveway. 

"That's okay," Bill said, rolling out a trash bag to flap open. Silently thinking (deciding) that Stan had probably had enough of the Denbrough house for a good while. "I'm sh-sure you're i-itching to get home and r-rest." He nodded toward the ceiling. "Your stuff's ss-still upstairs, where you l-left it."  
  
An awkward silence (what he perceived it to be, anyway) fizzled out between the two of them, until Bill simply decided to get on with his chores, and ducked away to make his way down the basement steps. When he came back, Stan was gone, his room tidied up, as if nothing had ever happened. Bill couldn’t really shake what had happened, but he did a pretty good job ignoring it. 

For all his worrying, they made the best of their summer, like always. Like always, it flew by fast. Too fast, Bill decided, by the time August rolled around.  
  
***  
  
Alone in his bedroom, Bill cast his gaze around the sterile space, stripped of posters and most clothes, while everything else had a replacement for it waiting in the minivan to serve in his dorm. He had one more box in his arms, and he was supposed to bring it downstairs to load so they could get going, but he couldn't help lingering a second longer.

To some extent, he wouldn't miss it. This house, anyway. Derry at large was another business. It was no secret how difficult living here was, even with the best friends he'd probably ever have for as long as he lived.  
  
"Bill!" his mother called from downstairs - probably yelling for him to hurry up so they could get on the road. Bill obliged the imagined demand, shutting the door behind him one final time to hurry down the steps.

Instead of the reality he convinced himself of, though, Bill found himself face-to-face with something completely different in the foyer, while his mother followed him with a sour expression.  
  
"I told you, no visitors this morning," she said as Stanley shifted uncomfortably in the doorway. Bill couldn't even find it in him to be sorry. It just wouldn’t have felt right if _someone_ didn’t come see him off. He thought it would be Richie, but he had set out for California days ago, mostly out of the blue.   
  
"Five minutes," his mom said, turning to go outside, down the path to the driveway. Bill fixed his attention on Stan, bending to put his box on the ground so he could face the other a little more squarely.   
  
"W-what are you doing here?" he asked, knowing he'd made it perfectly clear early on that send-offs - even surprise ones - would not be a good idea today. 

"I'm sorry, I just." Stan blinked, his fingers curling and clenching at his sides. In all honesty, he was the last person Bill expected. With Richie gone, it could have been Bev. Mike, Eddie, Ben maybe. Stanley usually knew better, most of the time (but thank god this wasn’t most of the time).  
  
"I wanted to say goodbye," he whispered, as if it were a secret. "I know, you said."

Bill couldn't even be annoyed if he tried. "It's okay," he promised, nodding minutely with a small, restrained smile. "You're ff-fine, it's just my m-mom, she can be a, a b-bitch sometimes."  
  
A beat later, Bill lifted his hands out of his back pockets. Nothing could stop him from closing the couple feet of distance to pull Stanley into a firm hug, arms coming up to smooth against his back. All hysterics had come and gone when Richie announced he was leaving, and didn’t threaten to manifest now.   
  
"I know I-I haven't always b-been there for you, like I sh-should've," Bill muttered, staring at the carpet under their feet when old wounds threatened to make him sadder than he ought to be. "B-but I'm glad you ss-stuck around, this long. We were all p-pretty annoying, I know."

At first, Bill wasn’t sure Stanley would return the embrace. He wasn’t always predisposed to affectionate contact.

But then, long arms came around his waist, and Bill was almost upset that this was what it took to get a hug out of Stan.

"You weren't all that annoying," he answered, muffled and thick. All Bill could hope was that it wasn’t a lie.

His very own smile stretch in the corner of his mouth, small and sad. The kind Bill thought he'd be able to avoid today. The only plus side to getting on the road without any distractions. Even with the knowledge that the would see each other again - they had to - it was the end of an age. But he had to hold it together. Fearless leader, and all that.  
  
Stan lifted his head, and Bill let his grip slip as his companion’s face came into view. Before he could discern whether the shine in brown eyes was watery or otherwise, Stan loomed too close to tell, Bill’s lips were covered by a warm mouth.

Despite every thought he could have possibly been capable of finding its way into his brain - he thought something like this wasn't supposed to happen again, he had forced himself to stop thinking about the hows and whys, for Stan's sake - Bill closed his eyes almost immediately, sinking into the lull of firm lips as his hands curled a little tightly into the fabric of his shirt. He let those thoughts drip away, and drown out under the acute warmth under his hands, balancing on a precipice of restraint that kept him from delving further, deeper.  
  
The only thing that stopped Bill was the angry horn from the van outside, flinching against Stan's mouth enough to have him startling back. His breath came out a little fast, mostly from getting scared by what was no doubt his impatient dad behind the wheel.   
  
Bill closed his mouth, and glanced toward the door, then the box, where he'd left it. "I-I g-guess I'll s-s-see you," he murmured, stepping back to retrieve the cardboard box while his pulse thumped in his cheeks.   
  
Stan’s arms fell to his sides, awkward and withdrawn again. “Yeah. Do you need any help?”

"Th-that's okay, it's not that heavy." It really wasn't, as Bill hoisted the light box back into his hands. It was probably more clothes or something. He almost wished it was heavy, though, or that he had just said yes. It might have meant just a couple more minutes.  
  
"Just g-get the door behind you, if y-you c-could," he said, nodding at the front door. Stan obliged, allowing Bill to tread out onto the porch. They carried on to the car together, with the truck still open, so Bill could place the last box inside and shut it soundly.

Everything was packed, and ready to go. He just had to get in the backseat and buckle up.  
  
"Um." They'd already hugged inside. And then some. Nothing left to do but shove his hands in his pockets again. "I'll b-be around at Thanksgiving. M-maybe a couple weekends before, I'm not sure." 

"Oh, I’m doing volunteer work over fall break. I should be back by the first of December though," Stan offered in response. Curling his shoulders up, he aimed for a wry smirk. "Five whole weeks of empty winter!"

Every passing heartbeat risked another jolt from a persistent horn. But Bill couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye. Not even when Stanley took initiative.  
  
"Safe journey," the dirty blond declared, a bit hesitant, lifting his hand to wave before he turned toward the sidewalk.

All Bill could do was watch helplessly, uselessly, as Stan saw himself off, with little more than a raise of his own hand in farewell. He never did say goodbye. But then, neither had Stan. As if it were a defense mechanism or something. A failsafe.  
  
Another honk had Bill jumping, and scrambling into the car before he could get reamed out for being the reason they hit city traffic. Seated and buckled, they pulled out of the driveway a minute later, opposite the way Stanley left. Bill made a point of not looking though. Still, he couldn't help brushing his fingertips over his mouth. As if that might preserve the contact all through the long fall semester.

If leaving hadn’t hurt enough before, it sure did now.


	2. Chapter 2

There was something amusing about Hanukkah paper wrapped around a Secret Santa gift, Stanley thought, taping a store-bought bow his mother had pulled from one drawer or another to the blue paper patterned with gold polygons. He had set aside a small box full of chocolate coins and apricot gelt for each and every one of his friends, but that didn’t account for the twenty-dollars-or-less present he was supposed to conjure for the name on his random slip of paper. 

This year, the first college had affected their abilities to gift-give, the Losers Club Secret Santa had turned into a game of hide and seek, each of them trying to hunt down the name on their tag before holiday plans got in the way. A phone call from Eddie had confirmed that Richie would not be back in Maine for winter break, and Stan couldn’t help but pity whomever had drawn Trashmouth Tozier from the hat. Mailing gifts was such a hassle. 

After several days of waking up early and visiting grown ups (a strange thought to have at eighteen years old) Stan was just relieved to be left alone at home, finally - a place he had done a good job of not having time to visit on weekends, up until the dorms closed between semesters and he had no choice. It made it so much easier to call up his giftee to come over, when the chance of his parents strolling by to gawk and judge and demand hellos had been squashed.   
  
Efforts to comb his hair back into place after some business at the synagogue that morning resulted in a tangled mess that could only be rescued by another shower to rinse  _ out _ the mousse his mother thought would be a good idea. By the time he had dressed again, this time in the hideous (but comfortable) menorah sweater Richie had given him several years ago and clean jeans, there was a car running in the Urises’ driveway. Specifically, the Denbrough family minivan, and Stan could just see Bill’s auburn head bent toward the steering wheel if he looked out his bedroom window.   
  
He waved ineffectually at Bill, who still wasn't looking, and still hadn’t walked to the porch, or rung the doorbell. Dread and excitement seemed like the same emotion lately (maybe just in Derry), but regardless of the hand that clamped down around his ribs at the sight, the memory, the notion of Bill Denbrough, Stanley took up his blue-wrapped gift and quick-footed his way down the stairs, setting the package aside in the front hall.   
  
"What are you doing?" he called from the front door, hands cupped around his mouth. It was too cold and too soggy to venture past the threshold without his boots. And a hat, considering his head was still mostly wet. The curls would only get worse now.

Bill finally looked up out the windshield, and didn’t dawdle after that. It still seemed to take forever for him to get out, shut the door, carry on up to the walkway that led to the porch. But maybe Stan’s driveway was just long. 

Despite the brisk cold pinching his cheeks and nose and chin red, Bill was all smiles. Poised in the raised doorway, Stan had more than the usual couple of inches to his advantage when long arms pulled him into a hug - never more or less expected than the last, it seemed. It was a miracle of happenstance that he had braced himself on the door frame already, leaving at least the one arm free to return the embrace while he resisted the urge to tip his nose into (soft) dark hair.    
  
"Hey!" Bill greeted, stepping away to leave this particular hug mercifully short. "How have you been? Happy Hanukkah, b-by the way."

"And a Merry Christmas to you," Stan returned with a smile, arm dropping his side, eyes sliding down and up - like he was being scanned for injury. Or maybe just alterations. It had been several months, after all, not that any of them had changed much in the last five years. Bill wasn't exactly someone Stan expected to come back pierced and tattooed (at least where anyone could see).

Waving Bill inside, he closed the door against the ravages of the mercurial weather. "First set of midterms had me calculating local bridge heights but I'm pretty good otherwise. What about you?" 

"Good, glad to be b-back," Bill replied, rubbing the color out of his cheeks in the much warmer foyer. “Truh-tr-trying to make my rounds, ss-see everyone. I didn’t expuh-p-pect you to call before I did.”

For a moment, Stan wished he could say the same. Almost a full week of being in Derry and not being allowed the time to see his friends sat heavily with him - though he wasn’t exactly taking it into his own hands beyond this one encounter. Rather than dwell on that, Stan took the chatter as an excuse to get gift-giving over with, practically spinning out of Bill's way to retrieve the Secret Santa gift from the narrow table where his parents kept keys and mail. 

"Seen th-three out of six,” Bill continued. “So ff-far, anyway. I was Ben's Secret-"   


His friend didn't even have his jacket or shoes off yet by the time Stan thrust the gift under his nose (maybe on purpose), trying not to be too pleased with the symmetry of the bow, or too nervous about it being a stupid gift in the first place.

After a second or so of blinking in the wake of his trailed off statement, Bill laughed, a nervous quirk that Stanley had to remind himself wasn’t meant to mock or taunt. 

"Y-you're my Ss-secret Santa?" Bill asked, taking the wrapped package while it was still being offered.

"No, I'm just handing out empty presents this year," Stan answered wryly, his lips pinching as he made an attempt to resist his own smile, only to bounce on the balls of his feet like an idiot. An idiot who couldn't find a proper box to skew the shape of the stupid gift, and had wrapped the leather-bound book directly without so much as a layer of tissue to protect it.  Bill wasn’t exactly Edward Scissorhands, so there was no reason to work himself up over it, but that had never stopped Stan either.    
  
"I've got some sweets, too, I just left them all upstairs," he added, twisting just a bit to glance up toward the ceiling, resisting impulses that had his arms twitching to shove the package closer, like that would speed things along.

Bill could have been stalling for all the time it took for him to pry the thing out of its wrapping. Of all the times to worry about wasting paper! Once there was dark smooth brown peeking through the glossy blue patterns, though, there wasn't much stopping Bill from crumpling it the rest of the way, and Stan remembered how to exhale.

It was stupid and pointless to stare anyone down while they were opening a gift. Stan hated it, especially when he was the one doing the opening. His fingers never seemed to cooperate and the overzealous use of constricting ribbons and tape had been a bane to his existence for as long as he could remember. None of which stopped him from watching Bill like a hawk - as if it mattered! Big Bill Denbrough wasn't going to let Stanley worry for a moment that he didn't like it, even if he hated it and could imagine a hundred better things than the dirty blond had managed in the weeks since their assignments.

The damn stupid paper finally fell away from the little leather booklet inside, that Bill flipped over and back, as if searching for a title. When he thumbed through the pages - blank - he seemed to realize what he was holding, and gave that awkward laugh again.

Bill hated it. Stan could see it in the slow blink of green eyes and the uncertain tilt of his lips. Who wanted a stupid book with nothing in it anyway! He couldn't even tear the pages out to pin on his wall. Did he even draw anymore? The Losers weren't supposed to outgrow him this quickly.   
  
"This is really nice," Bill finally offered. 

Stanley had already worked himself up though, wishing there was a hole somewhere he could crawl into. "I have the receipt, if you want something else. It’s pocket-sized, so I figured it would do nicely."    


"What? No," Bill stated, shaking his head with a particular insistence. "I l-love it, I p-puh-promise. It's the p-perfect size for me, just p-pull it out a-anywhere." He pantomimed putting it in his pocket and taking out like he couldn't believe it was there, like an infomercial actor. "Y-you obviously put thought into it to, w-wuh-which is even better. I mean, it's so great, I c-could..."

Stan couldn't quite stop the skeptical lowering of his lashes, gaze as deadpan unconvinced as one could be without being shocked or appalled instead. Not only was he being humored but reassured as well (though a performance of practical use wasn't exactly doing that for him), and he wasn't sure he could resist the fold of his arms, almost petulant as he set his fists on his hips instead - no doubt a wonderful echo of his mother. His mother who was always taking things out of other people's hands when she was sure they didn't like something enough.

"Oh, w-well, I don’t know w-wuh-what I could do," Bill finished finally, holding the book between both hands, tipped toward his chest. "Thanks, though. I m-mean it."

When it came to Bill,  _ Oh well _ and  _ I don’t know _ and the more common  _ Nevermind _ became the code for when his voice wouldn’t cooperate, and he didn’t have the gumption to try again. Stanley shook his head in response, out of habit. A habit he almost expected to have broken of by now, considering how many classmates took it very personally when you refused to let them off the verbal hook. Not Bill, though. If it weren’t for encouraging friends, he might never get a complete thought out. Worked wonders, unlike Derry High’s speech pathologist.   
  
"Could what?" Stan asked - not that it stopped him from rambling, half to himself and half to defend himself. "There are lined ones, if you want that instead. I wasn't sure if you still draw. I should know that, I'm sorry."   
  
"I w-want this one," Bill said certainly. Even then, was having trouble keeping his gaze pointed up and forward, it appeared, and not at his shoes. "I was j-just gonna say...I know you guys don't do the whole m-muh-mistletoe thing, but..." 

Bill cleared his throat, though it had never helped before. Stan wished there was some real way to help that didn’t require years of discipline, but right now, all he could do was stare in the creeping realization of the punchline anyway. Jew or not, he knew what mistletoe was for.   
  
"I c-could k-kiss you," came Bill’s quiet voice. Now, it wasn't cold turning his cheeks red.

Holding his breath over the fairly resolute declaration, Stan sighed it out, slow and quiet, a moment later. Only to swallow against the rise of a totally different set of nerves. He felt his face flush, a mirror of Bill’s, before green eyes were flicking up to pin him down. His arms fell a bit uselessly to his sides, limp and still.    
  
There was nobody home, a small voice in the back of his otherwise fairly empty thoughts seemed keen to mention. And nobody expected for a while. Unless the other losers decided to come looking for him - for them. God only knew what they were up to at this moment. Probably enjoying their much more carefully thought out gifts, alone, at their own homes. Those stupid illusions of togetherness would be the death of Stan.   
  
"Even without mistletoe?" he heard himself ask, like a witness to a play starring him as himself, unable to do more than stare from a red velveteen seat.    
  
People kissed hello and goodbye all the time! Stan could easily recall how many his mother doled out just this morning alone. As he shifted forward, though, his mind didn't bother to remind him that those were mostly on the cheek, with her girlfriends from temple. 

Hands that didn't know what to do with themselves rose to cup the point of Bill's chin between his palms, fingers sifting against soft hair and cold ears before Stanley tipped his head forward and closed his eyes. Despite the heat filtering through every room in the house, and the warm flush of pink across the bridge of Bill's nose, his lips were still fairly cool, and a little damp. Stan had to wonder if he had licked them recently, though there was no reason for him to have noticed either way.

A quick press of the lips, that's all a kiss was. Lean down, squish together, release. His parents did it all the time. Not that he was trying to kiss Bill like a husband and wife who had procreated in their lifetime kissed. 

Except it didn't take more than a heartbeat for Bill to tilt against him, intent and sure in ways that his faulty mouth usually wasn't. Their heads aligned, the shape of their lips fitting more comfortably, sliding together to send rockets blazing across Stanley’s skin in every direction.    
  
His fingers tightened - as if escape was even on the other's mind. The sketchbook lay trapped between them, digging into his sternum, along with the curled bumps of Bill's fingers clutched around the leather. Stan couldn't focus on that under the all-encompassing sensation of teeth parting against his, or the rush of air that swelled his chest enough to lift his shoulders as his tongue darted forward to taste.    
  
The flush of his skin, from tingling scalp to tensed toes - just trying to keep his balance while the world swayed around them - acted as a warning. Swollen capillaries giving him a taste of the hellfire that half the people arguing over  _ Don't Ask Don't Tell  _ could start spewing about at any given moment - not that he believed in that sort of thing, even if Sheol wasn't much better. Stan didn’t know what he believed. Just that there were worse things, real things, like bad people and ugly art.    
  
None of which could distract him from the slick slide of his mouth against Bill's, a concept which seemed at once to quiet and thrill every ion and electron in his body. His fingers had tightened and arms tensed so much that Stan may as well have been trying to pop the auburn head off like a doll.    


Much further along than he could have ever expected, Bill finally ducked away for air, sucking breath in between those swollen lips. It was just enough to keep their foreheads touching. Blinking rapidly, and then slower (and more purposeful, as he tried to clear his head), Stan sucked in air of his own - having forgotten, apparently, that he needed it at all. Forgotten or not, though, there was no stopping the lightheaded sensation or the heavy flood of relief that surged through him. 

"Y-you done that b-before?" Bill asked quietly, whisper soft warmth against Stan’s face.   
  
"No," Stan answered - declared, actually - accompanied by a small shake of his head. For a moment, he couldn't quite recall if that was a lie - the ghost of a memory blotted out by the fresh sensation of friction and heat against his mouth.    
  
For all his doubt, Stan was certain he had crossed a line, and his hands fell from Bill's face in an instant. Maybe not Bill’s line, but someone else’s to be sure. Fingers curling and unfurling at his sides, his mind raced for a distraction or a follow up - since there was no impatient parent with one hand on the horn to save him this time.    
  
"Do you want to help me wrap up the rest of the gelt?" he asked, hopeful and casual as one could manage between pounding heartbeats and the notion that one's soul was slowly escaping into the ether as they spoke. Rather than waiting for an answer, Stan turned toward the stairs and started on, set to task already.    
  
"Don't you th-think we should t-tuh-talk?" Bill called after, scrambling to rid himself of coat and shoes in an effort to keep up.

"About gelt?" Stan asked, a little incredulous despite knowing beyond any iota of reasonable doubt that he knew better. Focused on the stairs as he was, though, there was no time or reason to turn around until he had reached the top. Even then, Bill was already following him, so he continued on the way to his bedroom. Well, the  _ spare _ bedroom, since his parents hadn't hesitated for more than a week (it seemed) before packing up most of the things that hadn't been appropriate for dormitory life. Not that he missed any of it, really; it was just strange to see his bedroom redecorated.    
  
His mother had hung some of her art in there - still-lifes and ocean horizons, but that hadn't stopped him from removing them to the hallway for as long as he was home - along with new curtains that matched the new bed spread and border paper separating the wall into two complementary colors.    
  
"I did apricots this year instead," Stan mentioned, gesturing vaguely to the desk - once stacked neatly with school work, now a work station for disc-candy making and the folding of carefully cut paper boxes. "Mostly because my mom thought it would be fun to buy a bag of tin-wrapped coins this year, so there's still chocolate. Just, you know, subpar chocolate." 

"Oh, the gold coins," Bill murmured in realization - as if Stanley hadn’t been using the proper term for over a decade, Christian customs be damned. Lips pressed tightly, he nodded, succinct but insistent. 

For all the times that any combination of the losers had hung out together over the years, Stan couldn't recall many happening in his own room - certainly not for very long. That may not be the only precise reason that having Bill in (t)his room was so strange, especially with the floral print duvet, but it was enough of an explanation for him to dismiss the mounting apprehension with a huffed breath.    
  
"You can sit on the bed, if you want," he mentioned idly, when too many moments passed with just the two of them standing in the middle of the floor. Gathering up his discarded towel and clothes from earlier, Stan skirted into the bathroom to put them in the laundry, and then closed his bedroom door behind him. No one was home, and there would be two doors and a set of stairs worth of warning before they arrived, but there was no reason to subject himself to the expectation that seemed to come naturally with an empty hallway.    
  
"If you're handwriting is neat enough, I'll let you fill in the to-from labels," Stan teased then, dropping down into the hand-me-down swivel desk chair that had been replaced in his dad's office.    


"Write the l-label for my own gift?" Bill muttered in feigned disbelief, recovered enough to smirk, crooking his fingers for a pen from his position at the end of Stan’ bed. 

"Yes, and as a reward, you get to eat the extra with me while we labor away," Stan answered primly, one corner of his mouth curling a little further than the serene smile he originally intended to offer. He leaned over to retrieve one of the felt tip pens from the bulbous mug his mother had replaced his organizer with, passing it over along with the roll of sticker labels before he pulled the chair forward to situate himself.   


It had been too long since he had an indeterminate amount of time to spend with any of his friends, longer for Bill - and Richie - if only marginally. Considering the overzealous nature of his affections downstairs (if he could even seriously call it that), Stan expected it to be tense, or uncomfortable. Maybe even confrontational.   
  
But then, it was Bill. Big Bill Denbrough. Who had all the best ideas and who couldn't hold a grudge. Suddenly Stanley felt foolish for being nervous in the first place.   
  
"Have you heard from Richie?" he asked, not quite at a loss of what else to say - though he could admit that it had been on his mind this week. The crisp creases of the cardstock, already carefully measured, traced, and cut out, folded easily under certain fingers, and it wasn't long before he had a little row for Bill to stick the labels to when he finished each one.

"N-not besides a 'Merry Christmas'," Bill answered half-heartedly, capping his pen with a small snap. "Apparently Eddie's getting the p-play-by-play, though."

Recalling his own postcard of a synagogue with a magazine cut out of a bikini top pasted over it, Stan couldn't help a derisive snort, eyes rolling before he picked up the next and last box to be folded.   
  
"At least  _ someone's  _ heard word, I guess," he murmured sourly, only to remember that he had offered a taste of the sweets at his elbow. Straightening, Stanley picked two disks off the top of the pile, glad to find them firm enough, and twisted his chair to offer Bill one.   
  
"You make any new friends, yet?" he asked - wondering if he even wanted to know the answer.   


"Uhm, I guess." Bill glanced toward the ceiling like he had to think about it, which made Stan feel a little better. "M-my roommate's nice and I'm not a-anti-social or anything b-but, well, I dunno." He stuck one of the apricot treats in his mouth, biting down as he peeled off a label and smoothed it down to a box. "W-what about you?"

"I can't stand my roommate," Stan grumbled, eyes rolling before be popped the almost chewy candy into his mouth, sighing around it. Part of him was relieved to hear that Bill wasn't spending their months apart alone and sad, but he couldn't deny a spark of poorly aimed loathing at the people who got to go to college with him.   
  
"Gives me plenty of reasons to leave the dorm, I guess," he continued, stretching his arms forward and bowing his spine. "There's always someone to ignore at the library." Half the names that even came to mind were little more than classmates he spoke to about notes, but even if Stan wanted to put on the airs of social blossoming, there was no way to honestly compare them to the friends he already had.   
  
"Meet anyone nice?" he went on, not quite mocking his mother's tone. Stanley could almost blame the apparent norm of a conversational progression for his sounding like an idiot.

"No." Bill scoffed. Stan wondered if that was a confused note to his voice, or if his own mind had conjured it up all on its own. "Too b-busy, I guess. But it's n-not like I'm looking."

The corner of his lip curled and Stan told himself it was because the reaction was funny, even as a somewhat unexpected margin of relief swept through him. Maybe only because it was one thing that hadn't changed so far. It had to be, really, since Eddie and Richie getting together hadn't bothered him anymore than the gradually more flirtatious interactions with Beverly. But then, those were his friends. Not some strangers in another state.   
  
"W-wuh-what about y-you, Stan?"   


Stanley lifted his gaze from where it had fallen to his knees, finding green eyes not quite peeking at him before he followed down to Bill's idle hands. 

In answer, he could only shake his head a bit. "Mom keeps threatening to introduce me to some nice girls," Stan mentioned, his tone put upon and exhausted by merely the concept. There were some pretty girls in his classes, some of whom had no qualms about talking to him, with or without academic excuses. Plucking up another couple of candies, he leaned forward to offer Bill some more, and wound up setting his elbow on the end of the bed to lean.   
  
"Maybe next semester I'll find someone that will make her relax," Stan murmured, contemplative.   


Before he could become too self-aware of his own responses, Bill spoke again, freeing Stan from the prison of his own aimless worrying. "Do  _ you  _ w-want that, though?"

"Yes," Stan answered, confident, if a little clipped. He decided to blame the posture for that, and pulled his candy apart with his teeth, watching Bill fiddle with the discs in his hand. 

"I always have," he added, only to wonder if that could be true - at a certain age, there wasn't much in the way of future plans to remember, except contemplations of being an astronaut or a cop or King of Atlantis. "Nice pretty wife, few kids, house and car and home office. That's just normal." 

Stan bit off the other half of his apricot candy. There were plenty on the plate and only one box left to fill, though he hadn't forgotten that all of them needed chocolate coins still. At least his dad hadn't bought another set of tiny dreidels. He wasn’t sure they would fit.   
  
"I guess I just wasn't expecting to be this age so fast," Stan continued, a wry smirk pinching his cheek before he dropped his head down onto his upturned fist, half-draped from the swivel chair (threatening to slide out from under him with every wrong move) to the end of his bed.   


"It's n-not that fast," Bill countered, easing back on his hands, chewing thoughtfully before he cared to explain. "W-we're still kids, really. We still go t-to school and ss-some of our p-parents still pay for us t-to exist. I mean I can understand wanting to get o-out of here, that's what I w-want, b-but..."

These days it seemed like every conversation was about the future - which was probably a good thing. Attempts to talk about the past really only ended up with tears or being sick to his stomach, and everything else was just a fad. 

Despite that, Stanley couldn't recall anything his friends wanted to accomplish with their lives, beyond this step. Graduating high school had been the goal (and surviving long enough to do it). Then college. Then marriage. Then children. That's how the world worked and it's how life worked.   
  
Ultimately, Bill shrugged, smiling a little bashfully. "I dunno. N-normal is our p-parents, and they m-made us, and we didn't have it ss-so great, you know?"   


"I think our lives would have been a lot better if we weren't  _ here _ ," Stan murmured, just a little sullen but very serious. Blaming Derry for all of his problems was probably the lazy route to take but it was also the most obvious. "This isn't the most normal town," he added, as if that was all the evidence he needed for that theory. It was all he wanted to say about it too.   
  
"But even then, I'm not sure my parents tried very hard." Rolling onto his back was a fruitless and dangerous endeavor that only worked if he lifted himself out of the chair long enough to turn and drop on his bed instead - so he did. There was plenty of room between Bill and the wall to do it.    
  
"Normal isn't being the only Jew in school, let alone the Rabbi's son. Normal isn't hosting seders for hundreds of people, or letting strangers spend the night to ease their travel expenses. Normal isn't treating fear like its made up for attention, or just an inescapable inconvenience of being alive. I'm pretty sure I can do normal better than my parents ever tried." 

Folding his hands on his stomach, expression thoughtful, Stan stared at the ceiling as the bed jostled, until Bill was flopped down beside him, lying on his belly, chin against the end of the bed. Between the long lines of the other's body and the flat, cool barrier of the wall, it didn't take long for the chills running through him to still and a comfortable warmth to settle over him. This was why soldiers shared tents and animals slept in curled up piles. 

"I guess," Bill muttered finally, more defeated than he ought to sound. "B-but if you didn't have any of that, you wouldn't have had any of us. Never w-would have even m-muh-met us."   


Stan tipped his head to the side to find green eyes much closer than he had anticipated - even separated by the width of both their shoulders.

"That's true," he conceded quietly, knowing without a doubt already that the losers were worth everything they had been through. That was the only truth in the whole universe that he truly believed - a fact which both comforted and distressed him. After all, Stanley wasn't being rewarded for making it through each day with the smiles and laughter and quiet camaraderie that he had grown accustomed to over the years. He wasn't being drawn out of those dark spiraling stair wells that his mind seemed to crave with every wry quip and encouraging glance.    
  
Knowing it wasn't going to be easy, and fearing that it wasn't possible. Those truths stood like pillars, or bookends, on either end of a very fine line that Stan had been balancing on for a long time.    
  
"But I already have you," he added, brows lifting. "There's nothing to be done about what's happened, and to be honest I'm not sure I could trade the losers club for any of it anyway. But the only useful part about being this old is that I finally have all the power. I decide what I'm going to do every day, every minute. I know I can't control the world but I can control what I do in it, to it, for it. It's going to take time to get what I want out of it, but that's time that I am choosing to spend for that exact purpose." 

"Y-your college must be a lot more lax than m-mine," Bill mentioned (deflected) with a pinched smile, half-squished by the mattress. "I c-can't even have c-candles, let alone control the world."   


"Well," Stan breathed, chuckling his concession to that point. By all accounts, the RAs were stricter than his parents could manage, but that was just a part of following the paths that lead to his goals. Fulfilling requirements to meet a standard that served his purpose.    


"M-maybe I should go." Bill shifted back to sit, grunting as he pushed his arms up, to swing over the side of the bed. "T-told my m-mom I'd be home for dinner." 

Stan sat up, realizing afterwards that he had probably mussed his mostly dry hair beyond redemption. A wasted shower, but at least he had nowhere else to be tonight. Glancing at the clock, hung on the wall above the desk, Stan blew out a breath, and shifted toward the end of the bed. He didn't realize how late it had gotten, but at least his task was almost over.

Glancing back at him, Bill tacked on, "Unless you have a-anymore chores for me t-to do.”

"Not that I can think of," Stan answered, sounding a little disappointed by the notion. Which, frankly, he was. Being home alone for half the evening wasn't exactly what he wanted, but then he also couldn't keep his friends from their families the whole time either. 

"Maybe check back tomorrow," he teased, rising from his seat to escort his friend to the door. 

"Okay, well ff-for the record, I charge by the hour," Bill retorted pointedly, bending to retrieve his sketchbook.

"Noted," Stan answered, the smile evidenced in his tone even as he pinched his mouth to subdue it a bit. People who smiled too much seemed insincere. It wasn't lost on him how often Bill had him smiling, though - more than any of the losers, really - even when he wasn't sure he wanted to be. That was just something about Bill, always had been, and hopefully always would be. 

As they tromped down the stairs, Stan wondered if he seemed insincere.   
  
"I th-think Mike m-mentioned wanting to meet up for New Year's or something," Bill said on the way down. 

"Wants to watch the ball drop together?" Stanley asked, clarifying more than anything.

"Th-thing is, B-beverly is going t-to a party back at her ss-school, and y-you know about Richie, ss-so...maybe. I dunno."

Even Beverly and Richie missing couldn't make the evening quite as empty as staying home altogether would, but Stan still paused to contemplate the proposition (and wonder if it mattered that Mike hadn't invited him directly - as if there had ever been a time when anything less than all of them were invited and expected by default).   
  
A couple beats let Bill put his shoes back on, bent in front of Stan when he peered up from his laces, eyes virescent as ever. "W-would you want to d-do that?"

"Sure," he answered, as if he hadn’t been contemplating at all. Stan hung his hands at his sides as they stared at each other, swallowing against the rush of circulation through his body. Maybe he needed to walk around a bit before he went back upstairs to sit down again. 

He stood at the open doorway until Bill reached his car, before turning back toward the hollow echo of his empty house. Left alone, there wasn’t even the scratch of pen, or stamp of candy to keep his errant thoughts from finding him.


End file.
